There's a moment, suspended in time, when we witness something wrong—a moment that tightens our hearts, an instant where we know, deep inside, that what we're seeing demands action. It could be the sight of cruelty on the street, an act of violence, or maybe something smaller but equally wrong: an unkind word, an unfair judgment. Our instinct might be to look away, ignore it, and tell ourselves it's not our place, not our fight. But as William S. Burroughs reminds us with painful clarity, "After all, there are no innocent bystanders." In that moment of hesitation, something about who we are is revealed. Our silence, our stillness, is not neutral. It weighs heavily.
To witness and do nothing is a form of surrender. It is at that moment that fear, apathy, or a pang of discomfort wins out. We have all been in that place—stuck, unsure, stumbling over our minds for an excuse not to act. We think to ourselves that somebody else will help, that it's not our business, and that we don't want to cause a scene. In such moments, though, we are not neutral. We're retreating from the truth, hiding ourselves from the moral responsibility that rests with each one of us.
It is easy to believe that by doing nothing, we wash our hands clean of responsibility. We aren't pulling the trigger, hurling the insult, or enforcing the law that strips someone of their dignity. We tell ourselves that we are just observers, watching the world unfold. But Burroughs shakes us out of this comfortable delusion. The truth is as simple as it is brutal: by standing by and doing nothing, a side is taken. Our inaction becomes, in its silent stillness, part of the problem.
Burroughs' notion also speaks to the psychological mechanisms that underlie inaction. In my AP psychology class, my instructor introduced us to what is called the "bystander effect." This occurs when members of a group are less likely to help in an emergency because they assume someone else will take responsibility. This is called diffusion of responsibility, a mental justification for not getting involved. A classic case often cited is the death of Kitty Genovese in 1964, who was killed outside her apartment while many neighbors heard her cries for help and did nothing to intervene. Now imagine being in a situation where, as the victim of an injustice, you are crying for help and watching people around you—friends, neighbors, strangers—do nothing. How must it feel to be left in your suffering, watching people turn away? That pain cuts deeper than the wrongdoing itself. The lack of empathy, the void where humanity should be, is a wound that never fully heals.
The irony of the bystander effect is that it reinforces our own silence. When we see others standing by, it becomes easier to convince ourselves that it’s okay for us to do the same. This collective inaction feels, at times, overwhelming and even suffocating. It creates an environment that feels not just difficult to speak out in, but impossible.
This reminds me of something the great Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, once said: "Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." Every time we fail to speak up, we embolden those who do harm. We cede space to wrongdoers, allowing them to continue their work, unimpeded. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but one that cannot be ignored.
It might feel light, as if we are releasing ourselves from responsibility when we do nothing but stand by. Yet this lightness is just a ruse. It is one of the greatest lies we tell ourselves. The famous existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre once said, "We are condemned to be free." We are free to make choices at every moment, and with every exercise of that freedom, we bear the weight of responsibility. In acting or not acting, we choose; and in every choice, there are moral consequences. We like to believe we would act differently—that in the face of atrocities, we would speak out, fight back, and risk everything to do what is right. But in truth, we are given smaller, more intimate versions of this test every day, and most of the time, we fail.
No one gets to rise above the fray. We all share in the culpability for what happens in the world. Burroughs challenges us to remember that we can't avoid this fact. To stand as a bystander is to take the side of the oppressor, the side of silence, the side of the status quo. Once you've chosen that side, you can never claim innocence.
The immediate costs of speaking out—discomfort, potential backlash, the risk of social exclusion, and even harm—are what we tend to focus on. But we don't always consider the long-term cost of silence. Every time we are silent, we lose a piece of ourselves. It isn’t just that we allow wrongdoing to continue, but we also allow a little part of our soul to wither.
Moreover, by doing nothing, we diminish ourselves. We shrink, become less brave, less human. There is a reason we admire those who speak out against injustice and stand for what is right, even under threat of duress. They live in harmony with their values, bearing the pain of the world’s suffering with dignity. They show us what it means to be fully human, to care about something larger than oneself. Burroughs' quote, harsh as it may sound, also offers hope. If no one is truly innocent, then we all have the capacity to change the narrative. We are not helpless onlookers. We have a voice. We can intervene. We can choose to be more than mere witnesses to the evils of the world.
It starts small: a word, a gesture, a refusal to look away. It starts with choosing discomfort over ease, action over silence. It is with this awareness that we must understand: unless we are willing to be the change, the world will not change.
In a world where suffering, inequality, and injustice are everywhere, we don't have the luxury of being bystanders. Every time we witness wrong and do nothing, we lose a piece of our humanity. But every time we step forward—even in fear, even in uncertainty—we reclaim it. We are all contributors to the world's moral fabric, and the threads we weave matter. Inaction is never innocent, Burroughs suggests. But taking action, no matter how small, can create ripples that challenge the silence and shake the very foundations of injustice.
References:
Sartre, J. P. (1946). Existentialism is a humanism.
Wiesel, E. (n.d.). “Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”